Understanding

"You don't understand. No one understands what it's like inside my head"

Oh but honey I do know. I was there and in some ways still am. Hating what I see when I look in the mirror. Wondering how it is I can be cared for when I care so little for myself.
Wondering when I'll have the courage to sink the blade just a little bit deeper. Just a little deeper I would think, then the pain will all be gone away.

"I want to kill what's inside of me"

Me too. Only therapy lets me say these things louder than a whisper. I know what it's like to hate what's inside of you. To want to kill it. To want to stop the hissing voices telling you you're nothing. You don't matter. All of them are right.

I've been there. When I was there I hated the people that told me they'd been there too. I hated that they told me it would get better. I hated that they told me it wasn't just me. I wanted to feel special. I couldn't even be uniquely miserable.

But the thing is; all of the things I say to you I wish people had said to me over and over and over again when I was 15. To be honest it's what I wish people told me when I was 20, and 25 and even 30. Even now at 33 I long to hear someone tell me I'm valuable.

The only way people can know you don't feel valuable, really know it, is if you tell them.

Oh, I wouldn't have listened either. The times when my parents or friends would tell me these things. That I was beautiful and lovable and valuable I really mostly thought they had no clue. They thought the girl I showed them was beautiful. They thought the boisterous acts were lovable and endearing. They thought the way I allowed my body to be touched and my favors abused was valuable to them.
I simply didn't believe them.

I can see it there in your eyes too. That you don't believe me. That you think I'm just some old lady thinking herself hip to your jive.
But I see it and it's ok. You don't have to believe me tonight. Tonight is just one of the many times I will tell you that you are beautiful. That you have value that is not in how your body looks, that how you look is not even close to the most valuable thing about you.

So I know. But you don't have to believe me. I understand, and you don't have to believe that either. Some things are true even if you don't believe them.

I'm stuck in this dream it's changing me I am becoming
the me that you know he had some second thoughts
he's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
the me that you know doesn't come around much
that part of me isn't here anymore
all pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
drowns out all I hear there's no escape from this my new consciousness
the me that you know used to have feelings
but the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
and even when I'm right with you I'm so far away
I can try to get away but I’ve strapped myself in
I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears
I can see it killing away all my bad parts
I don't want to listen but it's all too clear
- The Becoming NIN

Used to Know

Driving down the road on an unseasonably warm winter day I hear snippets and melodies of what we used to be I feel chilled and pull on a coat of sadness and the scarf of shame thinking on how things have failed between us
I light a cigarette of anger and flick the violent ash of revenge and remorse out the window wondering what you are doing now

I feel I couldn't even begin to guess right
Because you're just someone I used to know

Telling light hearted stories I hear myself adjusting the tense of us from current to former
I play the tears of sorrow off as uncontrolled glee at the remembrance of our silliness, because it's been too long to still acceptably be so damn sorrowful over missing you

Churning like the snow that hasn't fallen this winter my heart flips back and forth between desperately wishing to have you back and feeling relief that the miles separating us match the miles apart our hearts have grown

I watch people passing me by in stores and find myself wondering what would happen should we meet again. I fear that you will simply treat me as a stranger. Measuring the kindness doled out to me against that you would give anyone else and pretending we were never more to each other than ships passing in the night

My heart still burns wishing I could return to that afternoon in the fading light. So scared and confused wondering how this person I loved so fiercely transformed into someone I used to know

Home

My throat has dried up.I've been paralyzed by what to say, overcome again and again by the fear of rejection, the fear of abandonment.
Working through intimacy issues steadfastly ignored for at least 20 years if not the full 32 is scary. Scary because I have to try to re-build my belief that I am valuable because I am a child of God. Even if I did nothing else ever for the rest of my life I would have value simply because God made me.

Because I don't believe it. I doubt it so greatly that I've convinced myself (along with a substantial amount of help from others) that it's true.

I feel dry. So dry and sapped and strung out on fear and paranoia I can't see the top of the hole I've dug for myself to hide in.

But through it all I hear God whispering that he won't leave. If I can be frank, and it's my blog so I think I will be, I don't believe him yet.
With every relationship I seem to have long lapses of times where I hold my breath waiting for them to figure out that I'm no good. That I'm garbage to be thrown away when I'm no longer entertaining or useful.
Because that's who I see when I look in the mirror.

Garbage.
Useless.
Not good.

But that God is persistent. Even as I turn my face from him, even as I shout at him that he made a mistake when he made me because I'm NO GOOD he just stays put, stubbornly.

I stopped leading. The transition has been better and more terrible than I anticipated. Better because I have had my pastors clearly express to me they care for me no matter what. Better because I have experienced them allowing me to exit and go quiet because they want to help me honor God in truly resting and refreshing in this time. Terrible because I secretly wonder if they're relieved the be done with me. Terrible because I feel useless and therefore I'm not worth anything if I'm not doing doing doing.
Let me be clear that most days I know it's not true.
Most days I can inhale without choking and exhale without sobbing.
It's the some days that pour shadows over the sun and I wonder if I'll ever again believe these lovely people and this mighty God love me.

But I'm starting to feel the inkling of belief. The echo of a memory of the deep down knowing that God is here. He's here and he's not leaving and he's sticking around no matter what. It feels so strange.

But it also feels like home.

seeing myself sitting against the wall of the cavern with my tired head laying atop my arms slung over my knees and realizing it’s where i am and where i’ve been for a while, i found i wasn’t alone. seeing this in my mind’s eye for the first time, jesus sat with his arm around me. ‘we can stay here as long as you need to, mary kathryn,’ i heard in my heart. ‘and i will stay here with you. but i will not let you stay here forever.'

(Inspired by: Bottom-Dwellers)

but anger is the mask fear wears until it either becomes a monster of hate or a puddle of clay which only christ can mold and fix and change in his own image. (via)

The In Between

Rescued-

1. Save (someone) from a dangerous or distressing situation.

2. Keep from being lost or abandoned; retrieve

Redeemed-  
1.a: to buy back : repurchase b : to get or win back. 
2. a: to free from what distresses or harms: b: to free from captivity by payment of ransom

I read "I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed" today while on my lunch break. I was breaking in a new book and my breath caught. Because that's sort of where I am. Praying to be plucked out of the danger and distress and placed in a new, exciting and much more clearly defined life. Praying to be back to normal, even though I was never a huge fan of the normal when I lived there.
I'm scared to be shaped. I'm scared of redemption because in my secret put away hear I don't believe that I'm valuable enough to be bought, let alone bought back. I'm scared of the waiting, of the silent in between times full of turmoil and refining.


Yet, I find myself in the in between anyway. Despite all of my protests and tantrums here I am, in between. Some much needed rest and intentional withdrawal is here and it's time I start making as much of this in between as I can, stop throwing the tantrums and actually listen to the whispering voice telling me that He sets my value. That He has already redeemed me

If I'm honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook: this is what I want. Period. This is what I want. Aren't you getting this? I didn't pray for God's will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn't mean it. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else for that matter. 

-Shauna Niequist Bittersweet 

Conform

Often, without even meaning to do it, I do it.
When meeting someone new, that I don't even know or think is cute or anything, I'll conform myself subconsciously into what I perceive they might want me to be at that particular time.

What do you think is funny?
I'll crack a joke that matches

What music do you like?
I likely have it on my ipod and will play it (and sing along) for you

Do you prefer hair up or down?
I'll wear it accordingly

I really dislike this about myself. I am struggling with identity and finding it in the appropriate and rightful place, with God.
Yet my position of default is to twist and turn and conform myself to the perception I have of what pleases others.

I'm working on it, day by day, minute by minute, second my second.

Currency

I spend a lot of time thinking about my currency. What is it I have that makes ma valuable to others? Is it really true or is it something I perceive to be my value?

The information I hold
The access to others
The entertainment value I contribute to a conversation

It's all very pathetic to me; this wondering about my value.

I noticed recently that the only contact I have with someone is when they ask about someone else. Unless we are in the same room for an extended period of time our conversation is usually restricted to only being about this other person (or specific group of people this person is in).
As if without the access or window into this other person there is little left to discuss. There is little to no (or only superficial) interest in anything about me without this other person.

I know I could probably try more, I know I could probably reveal any number of things about myself that would incite a topic of conversation about someone else or my life.

The thing is, I have.

But only a few minutes can pass before the conversation naturally or unnaturally turns back to this other person who holds what seems like a higher or more important place than I.

It feels selfish. It feels selfish to me, so I imagine it will likely sound selfish to others. If I bring it up I will be "oh no, it's not like that at all'd" away.
So I don't bring it up.
Rather I haven't brought it up.

I can feel my resignation dwindling. I can feel the words gurgling about in my throat ready to take the risk in asking, "what about me?"

I'm terrified of the answer. But some questions need answered either way.

I don't remember the day that we met
I don't remember what I was wearing or the words that left your lips

I feel like it would be easier
Knowing

Knowing where it started and why it started
Maybe it would help me walk away

I don't remember what happened the first time you spoke to me that way
I don't remember why I was so willing to believe I was worth so little to be cast away with a sigh and roll of your eyes

I feel like if I could only understand the why I would understand what to do next and where I should go from here

But I know better
I know the why isn't important
I know the how and the where and the what isn't the point
I know this started generations before I was around

Because the way we treat people lasts and lasts
The words we speak and the actions we choose or don't choose
They matter

I see it in myself
An exhausted disdain
A wondering if all this digging and fixing is worth it
Because I wonder if I'm worth it
I'm fighting to believe I'm worth it

Decades of apathy and swallowing bitter pills of whatever scraps I could grasp onto have numbed my bravery and I can hardly even ask anymore
But I ask
You forget
I cry
We all move on

And I'm trying to move on
I'm trying to be better
I'm trying to realize that I'm not the only one that needs to do better but I'm the only one that I can make do better
So I try, I move on and I do better

Truth Is...

"The truth is, the biggest sin issue right now, for me, is that I just don't believe God's promises are true for me."

This is what I said to a dear friend back in the early spring. We were at a conference together and I was just walloped over the head thanks to a speaker talking about volunteer burnout and taking time for you and God alone.
It's still mostly true.

I believe in a big God. A God that is huge but can make himself small enough to come into our lives and walk beside us in every moment with every thing. I believe that God will redeem the years that I fought him and that he will redeem the years I believed he saw only the value in me that I believed (and was told) I had.

Most days it's not clean, and most days it's not easy. But I push on and fake it until I make it sometimes.
Because I believe even when I don't.
I believe when it's messy and when it's hard, I believe when I hear him the least that He is still here, holding me in His ocean of grace. Even when I don't believe, I believe. Because I don't know what else to hold.

What else is there to hold really? People have failed me, I have failed me. Food has failed me, possessions have failed me, drinking has failed me. Encounters both casual and not so casual have all failed me because none of them were casual to my heart.

The truth is it's easier for me to believe that God loves you than that he loves me. I have been so utterly convinced of my wretchedness that I have lumped God in with those that tell me I am nothing to them with voice and deed.

The truth is, we're all wretches apart from the salvation of a God that loved us all so much he sent his Son to die for us. The truth is we're all in desperate face to the floor need of his ocean of grace.

So I'm repenting. I'm choosing to believe and I'm asking God to help my unbelief. His promises do not say that God sent his Son for everyone but me. They do not say that everyone is eligible for redemption and forgiveness but me. How selfish to even think that it would.

The truth is, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm realizing that not a lot of other people do either. I'm just a broken girl, asking forgiveness for the audacity to believe she was beyond the reach of God's promises and grace.

All will arise and follow you over
Savior please, pilot me.
Over the waves and through every sorrow
Savior please, pilot me
Oh Lord, Oh Lord
Oh Lord, Oh Lord
-Josh Garels Pilot Me

Letting it Down

"I'm sorry I let you down. But you let me down too."
-Baby (Dirty Dancing)

I got a text about needing to chat. Over the course of the next few days I began to wonder, what had I done? Because my immediate belief is that I've done something wrong and I will be chastised.

Deafening silence happens and I think, what did I do? What action or inaction did I take to cause this to happen.

It all feels very selfish to me. As if I'm focusing so inward I can't see outward anymore.
But at the same time I'm realizing that the outward focus was founded in desperation to hide from something, something in me that I saw as being without value. Something I believed everyone else saw too.

I didn't know I could be valued for simply being alive. I didn't know how to look for that value in Christ and not men or women around me. I still don't get it entirely.

I also didn't know how to share the blame. Even though I can articulate to you that it's not all my fault, that statistically speaking it's impossible for all the blame to lay at my feet I believe that had I been more; more perfect, more demure, more deferential, more humerous...more, that people wouldn't have left. I believe that were I more I would know the answer to the great mysteries of life and relationship.

I'm learning to believe that everyone feels this way to some degree. That no one has it as together as the expectations I place on them and myself. Yet I push forward, aiming for perfection and dying inside when I inevitably miss.

So I'm making peace with having to look inward for a little while; to figure out and uproot the sin and the doubt that I find and then move outward so the serving, the friendship, the love that I offer to others can be deeper, more genuine and less chaotic.

I know that I have let people down. It's the way life goes. But I'm just now realizing that when they let me down I can name it and not assume that I am somehow to blame. It's terrifying really, but freeing just the same.

Paying

It never casually passes my lips. Even if it appears that way, it's never casual to me.
Each time feels like a small death in my heart.

I didn't know it would be our last conversation.
I didn't know it would be the last time I heard your voice.
Because I never imagined it could change. I never imagined it would end like it did in a dull pop and a ceasing of everything.

But it did.


Now I pay. When I say your name, when something happens that reminds me of you and a story we lived through side by side. When something funny happens and my heart leaps to tell you but I remember that you are gone.
Just gone.
Just like that.
Just as low key as you entered, you left.

Things change, I know this. But I didn't think that we would. Without my noticing, without realizing what was happening it was changed.
Part me, part you, part all the things unspoken and misunderstood.

Now I'm changed. Both less than and more without you. Finding my way one small death at a time to the other side, wondering what I could have changed had I known it would be our last conversation.

Red Flags

I don't trust myself.
My judgement, my decisions, I always think they're probably wrong.
Always.

So when a person comes into my life and I see all of these red flags going up I don't trust the boundaries that I want to set, because what if I'm wrong.
Others don't seem to have a problem with this person.
Others seem to think it's perfectly find to interact with them.

But the thought of hanging around this person makes my head scream

DON'T DO IT

I'm pretty sure I'm right. I don't know that I need to never be in the presence of this person, it would be pretty hard anyway because we're in the same circles, but I definitely think I need to be very VERY aware of the things I say to and around this person. I think that I need to speak the boundaries out loud to this person and hold the consequences in place when the boundaries are inevitably broken.

So I sought council, with my counselor even, and she agreed.

GIANT RED FLAGS

Lies and abuse of trust are very clear indicators that this person isn't trustworthy and isn't someone that I should be delving into a relationship with, especially right now. Because I'm re-assessing my relationships to pursue healthier ones and I'm working to do what's best for me emotionally and mentally I can't afford to deeply invest myself in someone that will be so draining and likely damaging to my forward motion.

But still I worry. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm not looking hard enough for the good in people? What if I'm not giving this person a chance to show me who they really are? What if I lose other people because they don't understand my resistance to being involved with this person?

On healthier days I think, so what?
At some point I need to realize that I am the one that is ultimately responsible for guarding my heart. I am the one that is ultimately responsible for saying no, it's too much, I can't help carry you.

I had a healthier day yesterday, and it felt nice.

The Loudest

I don't know if the silence is a direct result of mine, it could be.
I don't know if the withdrawal is a direct result of mine, it could be.

But I don't think it is.

I think it's been this way for a long time and this is the first time I'm hearing it, seeing it.

I'm torn between becoming hardened and bitter and continuing to hope to be chosen. It's a choice I have to make every day.

So I don't talk about it, because what else is there to say?
I don't cry and scream and throw things, because what is the point.
I wonder what the point is in continuing to hope to be chosen in the face of all evidence to the contrary. But still I wait.

My phone doesn't leave my side because I'm sure you won't let the day pass AGAIN without at least a text. I'm sure you won't forget again this year. I'm confident in the midst of your day full of oh so urgent and important things that you will find me important enough for notice and consideration.

But at the end of the day I walk to my room, I turn down the bed, I crawl under the covers, I lay my head on the pillow and find myself once again seemingly forgotten.

I am so thankful for the rest of it. The rest of the wishes and hoopla. I feel warm and fuzzy and loved. But there is still a massive hole where you used to live and the grief washes over me anew.
I can't help that your silence screams the loudest.
I can only miss you and try to do the best that I can and hope you're doing the same.

Goes Away

We've been working on safety issues in therapy lately. Which of course means that my nightmares have escalated and I've started to have trouble sleeping again.
It always seems to get worse before it gets better.

But I was doing this homework assignment where I'm supposed to identify a belief (about the world not like religious beliefs or something) and as I was working through a belief about how safe I feel with other people and in relationships when the belief that my love makes people go away flowed out of my pen without prompt.
As I read it aloud to my therapist she made me stop and we talked about it.

We talked about how I don't trust that people will stay. That one day I'll be too much for them, either too clingy or too distant, too loud or too soft, too available or too overbooked and they'll grow tired of trying to be my friend or love me and they'll just disappear.
Or they'll die.
Which logically I know doesn't mean they leave me but we weren't really worried about logical at that point.

Because I've been behaving and acting in relationships based out of this belief.

One of the questions I had to ask about the belief is if the source of the belief is reliable.
I had to pause because I thought the source of this belief were the list of people that had left, who had dropped out of relationships with me (through death or by choice of walking away and no longer returning calls) and I felt caved in on when it happened. Some of them I thought were really reliable sources. Because they had been, up until the time they weren't.
But really the biggest source of that belief is me and when it came to how I viewed relationships and my safety in them I had to realize that I was unreliable.
Because I didn't trust that feeling you get when you meet someone knew. I didn't listen to myself when I heard that whisper of  "tread carefully with this one" and I willingly and recklessly gave all of my heart and all of my secrets to them from the word hello.
I allowed them all full access to my heart without allowing the relationship to develop because I was so desperate for someone to care. Someone to see me as I truly was.

Did I scare some of them away? Of course. But the others I should have never let in in the first place.
I felt that if someone was kind to me I needed to befriend them and help them in anyway that I could. I needed to pursue them because they of course wanted to be pursued.

I was treating them the way I wanted to be treated and expecting them to reciprocate.

But that's not how relationships work.
I don't really know how to change that belief, that my love is annoying and too much and people eventually grow weary of me and go away.

I take that back. I think I do know how to change it, and I think it's happening already. Through therapy yes, but a lot of the work is through the talking it out. The speaking aloud and writing out of these fears and this paranoia. Of realizing that I can't and don't control others or their actions and motives but that I should be more protective of my heart. I should let people in, but slowly and intentionally instead of quickly and desperately.

I still feel really unsafe relationally, and day by day I'm figuring out what it means to have healthier relationships and healthy boundaries in them.

Thanks

I met the other night with the ladies that are stepping up to lead the next iteration of Washington Project and Ben. As we talked through the transition and some guidelines of what it could/should look like I just sort of sat back and was grateful.
I was so grateful for the opportunity to lead at Four Corners and the way that God showed up throughout the years of Washington Project.
I was grateful for the staff and especially Ben and how they are constantly striving to lead well and allow others to make mistakes (and gracefully recover from them).
I was grateful for the stretching. The sometimes tearing apart of my heart by the people I served and served alongside as I saw just how desperately in need we all are of God's grace and forgiveness in large ways and small.
I was grateful for the moments with people where they realized for the first time that God saw them, really saw them.
For the lady at the car wash that cried because she believed her relationship with her kids was forever broken and we showed up that morning and told her that God loves her so much and cares very much about every single detail of her life.

For the lady at the dry cleaners that wasn't sure her marriage was going to make it and was hiding in the dry cleaners from her husband because she couldn't take one more fight. God set an appointment for Washington Project to show up and tell her that God is with her. That he loves her and is there for her.

For the girl at One Way Farm who made choices with consequences that almost caused her to miss her grandfathers funeral. For the almost year of going and playing silly games and painting nails that led to the moment of being able to tell her about a God that promises us eternity if we follow his Son. For the moment when she asked our regular One Way volunteers to sign her yearbook because she was leaving One Way and wanted to never forget us or the God we were serving ever.

For the couple at the marathon that took some free coffee from us and when we told them it was just a tangible way of saying God loves you and cares about you they cringed a little. But as they walked away realizing there were really no strings attached were heard saying, "that's the kind of God I could believe in, they really didn't try to hit us in the face with the bible".

For so many other moments large and small.

For the moments as a leader when I felt God bringing people in around me to encourage me when I was so defeated and low and I remembered that he cared about me too.

For the moments as a leader when I saw the people on my team light up with the realization that God has called them to such a time as this to lead in such a church as this to proclaim the gospel.

I was just filled with gratitude for it all and a sense of longing for what it to come. Because this chapter is closing, but I know that God is already writing another chapter on my heart and the heart of my awesome church.

I want to thank you
For so many gifts
You gave with love and tenderness
I want to thank you

I want to thank you
For your generosity
The love and the honesty
That you gave me

I want to thank you
Show my gratitude
My love and my respect for you
I want to thank you

I want to...

Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
-Natalie Merchant Kind and Generous

Transitioning

By the end of the summer I'll be transitioning out of leading Washington Project. I told the rest of the leadership team last night and it went well.
There are some excellent women stepping up to lead Washington Project after me. We'll also be re-evaluating the ministry to see what can be improved what stays the same etc.

No drama llama, it's just something that God has shown me is time to move on from.
I'll be taking a break and then serving in some capacity after the first of the year.

In the last few months since going to therapy the junk in my heart has been shifting and working its way out. I think this is a natural progression of how God is re-shaping my heart.

Should be a fun time. Looking at some other things that have been moving closer to front of my mind as well, I'm excited and more emotionally and mentally healthy then I've been in a long time.